Page 70 of Orc’s Grimoire

The brand at my hip feels like salvation.

My free hand moves toward it.

The mating mark ignites.

Not warmth—fire. A blaze that tears through the amplified relief like a blade through smoke, burning the Author’s edit out of my blood before it can finish taking hold. I feel the foreign thought dissolve—and beneath it, my own, clean and certain: her.

“Korrath.” Thyra’s voice. Steady. Cutting through the fog. Her fingers tighten around mine, iron-strong. “Stay with me.”

My hand stops moving toward the brand.

I look at her. Her face is pale, jaw locked, watching me the way she watches everything—assessing, calculating, terrified in a way she’ll never admit.

The Author’s edit retreats like a tide going out.

He almost had me. One more second and I would have let go.

“What?” The Author’s composure cracks. “That’s not possible. Your minds should be open books to me. I’ve been reading you both for years⁠—“

“The claiming.” Thyra’s voice cuts through his confusion. “The mating mark. It’s not just a mark between us—it’s a barrier. A closed system. You can read us individually, but when we’re joined, when we’re complete⁠—“

“You’re a single text.” I finish her thought, finally understanding. “And you can’t edit a book that’s already finished.”

The Author’s face twists with fury. For the first time since we entered his domain, I see fear in his eyes.

Real fear.

“No matter.” He gestures sharply, and the script-cage dissolves—replaced by worse. The throne room itself begins to shift, walls moving, floor tilting, the very architecture becoming hostile. “I don’t need to rewrite you. I just need to delay you. And if words won’t hold you⁠—“

The parchment-flesh walls tear open. Through the gaps, I see things moving—massive shapes, constructs bigger than anything we’ve faced. Not ink-wolves or word-wraiths. Living spells, given physical form. Entire incantations made manifest.

“—then perhaps these will.”

They pour through the gaps in the walls. Creatures of pure hostile knowledge.

I see a fireball given legs—a blazing quadruped that scorches the floor where it walks. A paralysis hex made flesh, its touch promising frozen eternity. A death-curse shaped like a woman, beautiful and terrible, her embrace the end of all things.

Living spells. The grimoire’s entire catalogue, weaponized.

“Thyra.” I pull her close, blade raised, positioning myself between her and the nearest construct. “When I move, run for the throne. If we can destroy it⁠—“

“The throne is just furniture.” Her breath is hot against my ear. “He’s the anchor. The consciousness. Destroy him, and the Codex loses its center.”

“How? My blade passes through him.”

“He chose to be intangible. He can choose differently. We just have to force him.”

The fireball-creature lunges. I shove Thyra aside, meet its charge with my blade, feel the heat sear my arms as I cut through its blazing form. The word at its center—BURN—shatters under my strike, and the creature dissolves into scattered embers.

More constructs close in. The death-curse reaches for me with pale fingers; I dodge beneath her grasp, feel her touch graze my shoulder, feel a chill inside me for half a heartbeat before my will reasserts itself. The paralysis hex tries to lock my limbs; I power through the sensation, muscles screaming, and drive my blade through its flickering form.

Thyra fights beside me. Her blood magic isn’t working against the Author himself, but it still affects his creations—she flings crimson droplets at the constructs, and where they hit, the living spells weaken, their coherence disrupted by power that was never meant to oppose them.

I catch glimpses of her between strikes—the fierce concentration on her face, the way she moves without hesitation, the blood streaming down her arm as she pays for every attack with her own vitality. Six years of feeding a hungry book have taught her things no archivist should know. Dangerous things. Beautiful things.

A word-wraith tries to slip past me toward her. I spin, catch it with a backhanded slash, feel the construct unravel against my blade. No one touches her. No one gets close.

She’s mine. Don’t let them reach her.